Deadly party’s organizer promoted the event for weeks

Officials in Oakland, California, say the death toll has risen to at least 24 from a fire that ripped through a converted warehouse. Alameda County Sheriff's Sgt. Ray Kelly announced the new figure early Sunday. He says officials anticipate that the number will rise. (Dec. 4)

Media: associatedpress

Jon Hrabko had been promoting the party for weeks on Facebook as an “insane lineup” of electronic dance music performers.

He was working the door at the event at 1305 31st Ave. in Oakland on Friday around 11:30 p.m. when a fire began that would claim at least 30 lives and leave more people unaccounted for. He was able to escape, and on Saturday, he spent hours at another club nearby, Eli’s Mile High Club, comforting members of the city’s tight-knit music community as everyone waited for word about the missing.

Jenny Yang (center) and others at Eli's Mile High Club bar try to find more information about their friends, on Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016, who attended a warehouse party in Oakland, Calif., that caught on fire. At least nine people were killed in a warehouse party fire at 31st Avenue and International Boulevard, in the Fruitvale neighborhood. As many as 100 people were inside for a performance by the Golden Donna 100 Percent Silk touring electronic dance music show. less

Jenny Yang (center) and others at Eli's Mile High Club bar try to find more information about their friends, on Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016, who attended a warehouse party in Oakland, Calif., that caught on fire. At ... more

Photo: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle

Photo: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle

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Jenny Yang (center) and others at Eli's Mile High Club bar try to find more information about their friends, on Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016, who attended a warehouse party in Oakland, Calif., that caught on fire. At least nine people were killed in a warehouse party fire at 31st Avenue and International Boulevard, in the Fruitvale neighborhood. As many as 100 people were inside for a performance by the Golden Donna 100 Percent Silk touring electronic dance music show. less

Jenny Yang (center) and others at Eli's Mile High Club bar try to find more information about their friends, on Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016, who attended a warehouse party in Oakland, Calif., that caught on fire. At ... more

Photo: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle

Deadly party’s organizer promoted the event for weeks

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Nearly 600 people on Facebook said they planned to attend the event, at a converted warehouse where artists lived and threw parties. But on Saturday, authorities said the location was only permitted to serve as a warehouse and that they had been investigating complaints about blight and unapproved construction inside the building.

Officials said that as many as 100 people were inside the warehouse known as the Ghost Ship for a performance by the Golden Donna 100 Percent Silk touring electronic dance music show on Friday night.

At Eli’s, Hrabko spoke to a Chronicle reporter and confirmed he was a party organizer but refused to give his surname, identifying himself only as Jon.

He said some of the missing were people he had hired to work the show.

“I watched that building burn for five hours,” he said. “Those people didn’t walk out.”

On his Facebook page, Hrabko said he had worked with Alameda County sheriff’s officials to create a list of people who were missing after the fire.

He stayed at Eli’s for hours afterward, mourning with musicians, friends of performers and members of the audience. Several of the mourners went up to him and hugged him. Looking tired, he called the incident a tragedy.

His Facebook profile says he’s an Oakland resident who once worked as an audio-visual technician at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and was formerly with LucasArts Entertainment.